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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28510377">Fairytale of Bright Moon</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkley/pseuds/parkley'>parkley</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff, New Year's Eve, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, catra in a stupid plastic top hat, homoerotic makeup application</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:07:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,653</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28510377</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkley/pseuds/parkley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's new years at Bright Moon, and with Horde Prime finally defeated, everyone can kick back, drink champagne, and celebrate with the people they love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adora &amp; Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Fairytale of Bright Moon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Adora!!” a series of frantic knocks ring out from the bedroom door. “Adora!! Wake up! We need your She-Ra muscle out here!”<br/>
Adora pries open her eyes, all the noise slowly filtering through her half-awake consciousness. Someone was knocking, they needed something, they were probably going to wake Catra, and she should probably get up. She looks down at the lithe figure curled up against her, and is surprised to see a set of mismatched eyes staring back at her.<br/>
“It sounds like they need your help out there,” says Catra with a grin. “But I was hoping you would sleep right through it. They’ll figure it out. I’d rather keep you all to myself”<br/>
Adora laughs, shaking her head.<br/>
“Well I’m the only one here with magically enhanced strength, and I did promise I would help them set up for the party tonight, so I think I should probably get up. But I promise I’ll be back soon.” She leans down and kisses the top of Catra’s head, smooths down the untameable mane of hair that has grown even wilder in the months since Horde Prime’s defeat. Disentangling herself from Catra, Adora slides off the bed and throws on her classic outfit.</p><p>The front hall of Bright Moon, as it turns out, is almost completely blocked off a giant clock, already calmly ticking down the minutes to midnight.<br/>
“Adora! There you are!” Glimmer looks relieved, setting down a crate of champagne and gesturing to the clock “Can you help us with this? It needs to be in the ballroom, not the hallway.”<br/>
“Yeah absolutely” Adora responds. “Can I ask what your plans for the clock are after New Years?”<br/>
“No, you cannot!” chimes in Bow from behind a towering pile of golden tinsel, “because we did not think that far ahead and are putting off thinking about that right now, due to the amount of party prep that still needs to be done.”<br/>
Adora accepts this, and, realizing that everyone else is hard at work on their tasks, invokes the honor of greyskull and gets to work moving the clock, directed by a harried Glimmer. </p><p>The next few hours are a whirlwind of preparations, with Bow pinning tinsel up everywhere with his latest thumbtack-arrow invention, Frosta and Mermista setting up an elaborate ice bath bobbing with champagne bottles, Entrapta enthusiastically setting up the tiny food buffet, Scorpia and Perfuma giggling over noisemakers in a corner, Seahawk dancing around singing sea shanties and plopping party hats onto people’s heads, and Glimmer directing it all. </p><p>Once everything is in place and Adora has a moment to stop and think, she realizes she hasn’t seen Catra all day. It isn’t as though Catra doesn’t have endless ways to occupy herself, but it’s a little rare that they spend a full day apart. It’s indicative of how far Catra has come since the war ended. At first, her eyes would flash with panic whenever Adora so much as left the room. The fact that Catra hasn’t come looking for her today really just proves that she’s feeling more secure than ever in their relationship, and there is nothing Adora wants more than to prove her right. To always, always come back at the end of the day. She heads back to her room as usual, and opens the door to a Catra who is putting the finishing touches on her New Years party makeup. Adora walks up behind her, looking at Catra’s reflection alongside her. Growing up in the Horde, they never really had occasion to dress up, but somewhere along the way Catra picked up the basics, and over the past few months at Bright Moon, she’s been refining her skills. She claims the right makeup can be used to make yourself more intimidating, and Adora never gets tired of all the new ways she finds to make herself look gorgeous.<br/>
Catra finishes applying her lipstick and turns around, and Adora takes another moment just to drink in how beautiful she looks. She’s in a deep purple suit, and has draped a silver sparkled, festive bow tie untied around her neck. A Catra trademark, the sight brings Adora right back to Princess Prom all that time ago, sharing a dance from opposite sides of the war, air crackling between them.<br/>
“You look perfect,” Adora exhales. “I would kiss you, but you’ve just put your lipstick on.”<br/>
“You know lipstick can be reapplied, right dummy?” Catra grins. “And for you, I think I can make the sacrifice.” She grabs Adora’s waist and pulls her into her lap, pressing her lips against Adora’s. Then, just to prove that she can spare the lipstick, she trails her lips down Adora’s neck, smearing lipstick on her collarbone, and making Adora shiver.<br/>
Catra sits back and turns to the mirror, picking up her lipstick again and throwing a makeup wipe at Adora. “If you get cleaned up, I can do your makeup for you,” she offers, so Adora makes her way over to the bed, where Catra has laid out her outfit for her, a sparkling silver wrap dress and purple pumps. It’s festive, and Adora has never been particularly inspired with fashion, so she appreciates all her friends' efforts to find pieces that she can feel comfortable and glamorous in at the same time. Having an alter ego with perfect hair and a designated outfit makes it easy to just skate by on the same old clothes, but she does enjoy the novelty of getting dressed up, especially tonight, when she will get to stay Adora the whole time.<br/>
She pulls on the dress, which is cool and silky, and fits just right. However, try as she might, she can’t properly angle her arm to get the zipper all the way up.<br/>
“Hey Catra?” she says, looking over her shoulder, “can you give me a hand?”<br/>
In a second, Catra has gotten to her feet and loped over to her, delicately zipping up the dress and then wrapping her arms around Adora, tucking her chin over her shoulder.<br/>
“We are going to be the best dressed couple at this thing” Catra says confidently. Adora rests her hands on top of Catra’s at her waist.<br/>
“I mean, speak for yourself,” she responds, “Bow brings the heat in those crop tops.”<br/>
“Hey!” Catra turns and playfully bites Adora’s neck, careful not to smudge her lipstick this time.<br/>
“Oooohh, scared you’re not going to be the sexiest one at the princess party?” Adora teases, turning to face her.<br/>
Catra fakes a sad face.<br/>
“Don’t worry, as far as I’m concerned you’ll always be the sexiest one at the party.”<br/>
“Oh I’m not too worried,” Catra retaliates. “Not just anyone is stunning enough to literally bring you back from the dead. But it’s fun to get you to admit it.”<br/>
Adora smiles, because, well, Catra is right.<br/>
“Now are you going to get over here and let me do your makeup, or are you planning on just relying on my good looks to cover for you all night?”<br/>
Adora tries to glare at Catra, but her smile keeps cutting through, so she gives up and sits down in Catra’s makeup chair.<br/>
This isn’t the first time that she’s given Catra free reign to style her, but she’s impressed every time. The way Catra can look at her face and understand all the angles and colors and potential is completely fascinating to her. She sits still, closing her eyes when necessary, trying not to sneeze at the powder. There’s something so beautiful and mesmerizing about the focus on Catra’s face as she carefully brushes color over Adora’s eyes and cheeks. It makes Adora feel very cared for, how gently Catra moves across her face, how intentional she is with every touch. Adora relaxes into it, the feeling of Catra’s undivided attention. By the time she traces Adora’s lip line with a few light strokes of lipstick, Adora is wishing that this never had to end. </p><p>It’s barely been two hours since everyone went back to their rooms to regroup and get ready, but the sun has dipped below the horizon, and party guests have started arriving. As Catra and Adora enter the ballroom arm in arm, they are greeted by familiar faces from all over Etheria. The new year is an important holiday, and especially after the toll that the war took this past year, everyone is eager to celebrate its end, and the hopeful beginning of a new, more peaceful era. Adora drinks it all in. The tiny food, the giant clock that looms over the room, reliably ticking down the hours to midnight. She finds one of the party hats that Seahawk had been wrapping tinsel around earlier and sets it atop Catra’s head, earning her a wrinkled nose and slight glare.<br/>
Bow and Glimmer appear behind them, and Adora has to stifle a laugh at Bow’s outfit. It’s not that he doesn’t look dazzling, it’s just that she’s thinking back to her comment to Catra about his crop tops. Because of course his tuxedo shirt is cropped to reveal his midriff.<br/>
“You two look incredible!” Bow exclaims.<br/>
“She looks like a work of art,” Glimmer says to Catra, common knowledge amongst them that Adora did not pull off this makeup on her own. “I mean, you both do. You have a real artistic touch.”<br/>
Catra leans into Adora, smiling at Glimmer, but clearly a little unsure how to react to the praise.<br/>
“You both look terrific too,” chimes in Adora. “Very festive! Speaking of which, want to track down some champagne?”</p><p>There is no shortage of champagne flutes around the ballroom, and soon they’re all warm and tipsy.<br/>
“Make sure he paces himself,” Adora reminds Glimmer. They are all too aware of Bow’s status as Bright Moon’s resident lightweight. If he were messy, or emotional drunk, it would be one thing, but the giggly, half-baked inventor side of Bow is what really shines. Nobody needs Bow trying to figure out how to make a champagne flute into an arrow tonight, so everyone agrees not to force any more champagne on him, as he really only drinks when other people convince him it's a good idea.<br/>
The four of them circulate around the party, catching up with their friends, talking with people from all over Etheria who they’ve never had the chance to meet in peaceful circumstances. Bow and Glimmer break off at one point to check on Frosta, but Catra never leaves Adora’s side. </p><p>By eleven, the crowd has gotten rowdier, drunk on joy and champagne. The music seems louder, and even though there’s an hour to go before midnight, noisemakers have already started to circulate, little paper horns and tin toys create a surprisingly loud din when spun around. The room feels a little hazy to Adora, and when Catra picks up a fallen piece of tinsel off the floor and wraps it around her neck, she knows her smile has crossed the border into goofy. Holding herself as elegantly as possible in her new tinseled outfit, Adora grabs Catra’s hand.<br/>
“May I have this dance, m’lady?” she asks with a slightly off balance curtsy.<br/>
Catra laughs. “I saved it just for you!”<br/>
She leads Catra towards the dance floor, just as a slower song rises from the band. It wouldn’t necessarily qualify as an actual slow dance, but Adora can work with it. She places her hands around Catra’s neck, and Catra wraps around her waist, fitting perfectly against her.<br/>
They sway gently, and Adora finds herself gently pressing the space where Catra’s head dips into her neck. She can still feel the scar left there by Horde Prime’s chip, the chip that took Catra and stole her from herself. Adora still gets chills thinking about the blank look in her eyes, the pain Catra endured trying to fight it off. And that’s nothing compared to the nightmares she knows Catra has. It’s stopped happening every night, but she is still woken up most nights by Catra’s shaking, or her frantic yelps. But she grew up with Catra, she knows how to wake her without scaring her too much, how to hold her so she feels safe, how to rub the tension out of her back, how to assure her she is loved, and cared for, and that Adora isn’t going anywhere.<br/>
No matter what, Adora will always feel some guilt over not being able to protect her enough, not when it really mattered. So she finds her hands coming back to this spot on the back of Catra’s neck again and again, somehow hoping that if they linger for long enough, they’ll replace the memory of the chip’s pressure. That maybe, if she holds Catra just right, she can erase every awful thing she’s ever been through.<br/>
Her eyes flick to Catra’s.<br/>
“Hey,” She says softly.<br/>
“Hey Adora,” Catra replies. “What are you thinking about?”<br/>
“I’m just thinking that I really love you.” Adora answers.<br/>
Catra studies her face. Adora is being far too earnest to tease, and Catra’s eyes flash with hope, the way they often do when Adora reminds her that she loves her. Like she still can’t quite believe it.<br/>
She’s serious too as she leans closer and whispers “I love you too,” right into Adora’s ear.<br/>
They stay on the dance floor for a little while longer, and then melt back into the crowd.<br/>
By eleven fifty, they are gathered around some corked bottles of champagne with the rest of their friends, ready for the countdown to midnight. Catra has procured a paper horn from Scorpia, and keeps blowing it in Adora’s face, resulting in a series of playful swats traded between them.<br/>
“Hey you guys?” Glimmer says suddenly, and the Princesses in their circle quiet down.<br/>
“I uh, just wanted to say how much I appreciate you all. It’s been a really difficult year - I mean who am I kidding, it’s been a difficult few years. But I am so glad to have had you all by my side, and, I guess I just wanted to thank you all for being such great friends.”<br/>
“Expanded Best Friends Squad Forever!!” Shouts Bow in support.<br/>
Everyone starts talking over each other in agreement, until Catra raises a champagne flute in toast, and manages to proclaim “To a new, better year,” which everyone echoes, lifting their own champagne flutes in agreement. Adora watches Catra proudly out of the corner of her eye. She has really grown so much, as a person and as a friend.<br/>
The giant clock is now displaying eleven fifty eight, and all the attention in the room is now trained on the seconds ticking by.<br/>
59… 58… 57…<br/>
Adora looks around her, wondering what the new year will have in store.<br/>
35… 34… 33…<br/>
She looks at Catra, and is overwhelmed by how grateful she is that they’re both here, that they somehow both made it this far.<br/>
By 11… 10… 9… 8… she’s counting down with the rest of the crowd, getting louder as she goes, feeling the energy in the room ramp up to<br/>
1… 0… HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!<br/>
The cacophony of noise makers and champagne bottles being popped and people shouting erupts around her, and she turns around to see Bow kissing Glimmer, Scorpia kissing Perfuma, Mermista kissing Seahawk, and remembers the most important part of this whole night.<br/>
She grabs Catra by the face and presses her lips against hers, making sure to smudge her lipstick a little, because she can. Catra leans into the kiss, and they stay entwined for longer than their friends around them.<br/>
Eventually, they break apart, accept the champagne they’re being offered, and dive back into the festivities. And Adora is absolutely sure of one thing. As long as Catra’s by her side, it couldn’t be anything other than a happy new year.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This title is based off of the Pogues song, and also my old tumblr blog (thanks for forcing me to pick that title, Katie)<br/>I hope its a fun, seasonally appropriate little fluff piece! This is my first foray into fan fiction writing<br/>@ Katie and Grace, you two are fully responsible for convincing me to write and post this, so you have to live with that now.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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